Welcome to Morland Studios! We produce 32mm and 54mm figures, 200mm busts as well as bases and scenics with the focus on quality display miniatures. This is the home of the Officially Licensed Nene Thomas, Howard David Johnson & Order of the Stick miniature lines.

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Roy Greenhilt Guide

Odds are, if you are reading this, you already know what The Order of the Stick is. If you are unfamiliar with The Order Of The Stick, it is an award winning web comic created and drawn by Rich Burlew that parodies D&D, role-playing games and medieval fantasy.

For this guide, I am assuming you have also read the OOTS Cleaning, Preparation & General Painting Information Guide. If not, I would suggest reading it as it contains a lot of basic information useful for each and every Order of the Stick figure. That guide can be found here: http://morlandstudios.com/?page_id=829

I picked the paint I used in this tutorial because the colors not only match the comic, but these paints are available worldwide through either local gaming stores or online. Feel free to use any brand of miniature paint you can find. Please note that the craft paints found in the local art and crafts stores do not contain the finely ground pigment that is in miniature paints and the large molecules found in craft paints may show up as grainy when used on a small miniature like Roy. BUT, if that is all you have, use it.

Here is a picture showing all the parts that make up Roy’s Kit: Plain base, body/head, two arms, two legs, a sword and two eyebrow options. Roy can have three different expressions based on which eyebrow option you choose to use, or if you choose to leave the eyebrows off. I’ve chosen to use the angry eyebrows for this tutorial.

I then clean the parts as mentioned in the General OOTS Guide.

Assembly:

Because of the stick figure nature of the Order of the Stick miniatures, assembly is a requirement to even have these miniature exist in a useable fashion at acceptable tabletop gaming, D&D/Roleplaying, display size.

Loctite is my personal choice for miniature superglue, it’s always given me great results and is pretty strong. People also use Gorilla Glue, Zap-a-gap, so go with whatever your personal preference for fast drying strong glue is. A little bit goes a long way when assembling these, a small drop is much better than trying to flood the area with glue!

With Roy, I’ve found it’s easier to assemble from the head down. I add the eyebrows first. Then I attach the sword with super glue to the right hand and glue the right hand in the socket. I then glue the left hand to the sword and into the left hand socket.

Then I glue the right foot to the base and then glue the body to the supporting leg. I glue the left leg to the body and gently bend the legs to the shape I want.

I then use a two part epoxy putty called Aves Apoxie Sculpt, to plug any holes left around the arms, eyebrows or in the base. This also gives the joins some extra strength. I’ve used just glue for a long time and had the joints stay durable on my miniatures, so this is optional. It just makes breakage much harder to do.

I mount Roy on an old paint bottle, give him his dungeon base and prime him for painting.

Now that Roy is primed, it’s time to paint!!!

Painting:

Because the artwork is deliberately not shaded, I am painting Roy the same way, with a single color for each part so he’ll look like the comic artwork.

I start by painting the sword blade Morrow White and the sword wrappings Viper Green.

I found it’s easier for me to do the base color of the sword wrappings then go in and add the lines in Pale Green.

For this copy, I give him a slightly more “realistic” look while still keeping him within the bounds of the art style in the comics. Instead of painting the legs, arms and hands black, I paint the tips of his hands the same color as his skin and extend his armor down his arms and legs. I painted the skin tone with P3 Beast Hide and the armor with Heather Blue.

Next I add Ice Blue for the stripe down his armor and Leaf Green for his belt.

The arm pads are next with Rainy Grey and use Cloudy Grey for the stones on the base, followed by the inside of the boots and the soles which are Leather Brown. and the outside which is Desert Tan.

This is the step where he comes alive! Now I finish up the base paint job with all of the black elements with Thamar Black. These areas include the eyes, eyebrows, sword hilt, separation between the skin and armor on the arm, rivets on the arm pads, mouth, lines between the stones on the base and the base rim. I also blackline him anywhere a part of him meets another part such as the neckline, where the fingers meet the sword, around the belt, where the arms meet the armor, the legs, where the legs meet the boot and the separations between the two different parts of his boots.

Blacklining is a miniature term for the color used to break up the transitions between different areas on a figure. If you look at the objects around you where they touch other objects, you will notice a thin shadow line. On smaller figures, they need this to help make the different areas pop. With a figure like Roy, he needs it to bring the overall paint job in line with the black lines that separate the differently colored areas in the artwork.

After blacklining, I look over a figure and do a “touchup” stage. If there is any color “over the line”, so to speak, and in a place it shouldn’t be, this is when I correct it and look for any last spots that were missed or that I want to change. When I am happy with how he looks, I let the paint from the touch ups dry.

Now that the painting is done, I seal Roy with the Dullcoat.

Roy is now ready to go defeat some dungeon creatures or guard your desk or display case!